Libya: 27 Tortured to Death in Jails Run by Militias, U.N. Report Says

Torture is widespread in Libyan jails run by militias that toppled the Qaddafi government in 2011, according to aUnited Nationsreport released Tuesday. United Nations investigators, who had periodic access to various detention centers, said there was evidence that 27 people had been tortured to death in the prisons, 11 of them this year. Conditions are improving for detainees held in prisons run by officers trained byLibya’s Judicial Police, according the report by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Support Mission in Libya. But many detention centers are still run by militias that have links to particular Libyan government ministries. The investigators urged the government to accelerate the process of taking over the militia-run jails and installing trained police and corrections officers. Some 8,000 detainees jailed since the eight-month civil war in 2011 are being held without due process, the report said, usually without access to lawyers and only occasional access to families